New Texas solicitor general named

Texas government has a new chief appellate lawyer, a job that has become a launching point for careers by establishing the conservative bona fides of Ted Cruz, now the state’s junior U.S. senator, and others.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that he had named Kyle Hawkins as solicitor general, replacing Scott Keller, who resigned to become a partner in a prominent Washington, D.C., law firm after arguing 11 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Texas.

Hawkins, 38, an assistant solicitor general in Paxton’s office since 2017, established a conservative pedigree early in his legal career by serving as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and for Judge Edith Jones, one of the most conservative members of one of the nation’s most conservative appellate courts, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.